augustine + soul deciding theodicy

augustine

because human beings  are in a position to decide their fate through the way they use their free-will that they have been created with 

evil as a privation

• evil is the lack of something and NOT A SUBSTANCE so god is not responsible for creating evil 

• privation is lacking something which you should have (e.g. blindness) whereas absence is something which was never there to begin with 

• Evil is not real/ a substance because accepting that evil is a force or power opposed to god would mean that god had a rival and was therefore not omnipotence → manichaesim (dualistic system based on conflict of light + dark)

As evil doesn’t come from God, it comes from humans. 

• all evil comes from moral choices, and an abuse of free will.  

• we chose whether to obey god or not.  

• we can know the good yet still not do it.  

• the notion is that we have free will and that this is central to being truly good. this is why free will is so important.  

• a world with evils that follow free will is better than one without it. 

og sin

• he thought humans had a natural predisposition to sin, which  raised the question of where that came from, since it would seem contradict God’s omnibenevolence to suggest that God created it.  

• He concluded that humanity must be to blame for it and looked to the Genesis story as an explanation. 

• Origin of evil is the fall if angels and the fall of man; before the fall god’s creation was perfect 

nat evil explained by fall of angels

• augustine considers the creation of spiritual beings asw. God creates the full range of types of life (physical and spiritual life) bc creation was good and perfect in the beginning, which meant it had to incl all types of beings. 

• certain angels (led by lucifer) chose to reject god and by doing so they introduced the evil of denial and fell into hell as they chose to turn away from god. This brought disharmony into creation which led to natural evil. 

moral evil explained by fall of man

• garden of eden was characterised by a state of harmony. everything was at peace w everything else but then a+e chose to be defiant and ate the forbidden fruit, thus introducing moral evil. consequence of disharmony was suffering. 

• we are all descended from adam and eve and so share the consequences of their choice. original sin passed down seminally. all evil is either the result of sin or punishment for sin. 

evil + aesthetic principle

augustine argued that evil is part of the natural balance of the universe. Just as a painting might contain light and dark shades to create a striking artistic effect, so the universe is like a work of art. the contrast between what is good and what lacks goodness is made clearer in contrast between goodness and privation.